


Strangers Passing By

by Starlithorizon



Series: In the Sun [5]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Female Sherlock Holmes, Femlock, Gen, Post Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-24
Updated: 2013-06-24
Packaged: 2017-12-16 00:27:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/855697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starlithorizon/pseuds/Starlithorizon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four months after watching her fall from grace, John thinks he sees Sherlock in London.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Strangers Passing By

Tinny music oozed from the speakers set high into the ceiling, blending into the cacophony of squeaking trolley wheels and soft chatter. Most of the shoppers this time of day were ordinary parents and their children just home from school, and while nearly everyone seemed a bit tired, none of them looked as breathlessly exhausted as the fellow in the dairy section. His hair was vaguely blond, but almost entirely grey by this point. There were heavily carved lines in his face, though he didn't seem any older than forty. The man looked weary to the marrow of his bones.

John trudged through Tesco with his few provisions like he was walking through molasses. The limp had returned, sounding in quiet conjunction with his tired footsteps. John Watson was still grieving, months after watching his best friend fall to her death.

The grief shone in every line of his body, from the slumped shoulders to the bowed head to the tensed knuckles. It was like a physical weight pushing him into the gleaming tile floor.

He paid for his groceries without fuss, the Chip and PIN machine letting him go easily. It was a small mercy, really, as he didn't need the extra attention he would get from having a row with the damned thing. He got enough unwanted attention as it was, just from walking around looking like hell. People watched him from the corners of their eyes most often, though he sometimes caught people staring at him outright. Usually, when this happened, he just stared back at them, far too tired to do anything else.

Sherlock had died four months ago, and John Watson was not okay. He could hardly sleep, as evidenced by the bruises under his eyes. He could barely eat, which explained the staggering gauntness to him. The man could only just walk, really, even with the help of that damned cane. John was a right mess, and it was startlingly obvious to anyone who saw him. Tabloid journalists took his photo as he passed blearily through London. Friends like Greg Lestrade dropped by more often than ever before, just to "say hi" and make sure he hadn't done something stupid. Family like Elizabeth Hudson closed their eyes every night and prayed to whoever might be listening in the ether that he might be all right.

John was grieving like he'd lost his wife, and the journalists did enjoy that. However, anyone who knew him, who knew _them_ , knew better. John was mourning so much more than that, platonic though their relationship was. He was mourning the loss of his best friend, his mentor, his sister, his charge, his protector. The woman was so many things to him, really, and it was like decimation. Which was worse? That he'd watched her fall, or that he hadn't known she'd been harbouring such dark thoughts?

He tore himself to shreds because he broke his promise to Mycroft, and because he didn't catch this potential before it became...this. Funerals and nightmares and blood mixing with rainwater before soaking burgundy-black into the pavement and poisoning it, poisoning everything.

It was that blood seeping into every crack in his mind, like salting the earth, ensuring nothing good would ever grow again.

And now, John found himself walking so slowly down the street, cane clicking with his steps like a slow metronome. A superfine drizzle surrounded the city, haloing headlights and shop signs. It was one of those dismally cold afternoons fairly dripping into evening. There was no sunset in a sky this grey, just darkness sliding into itself until the city found itself in golden night. There were surprisingly few pedestrians out today, kept indoors by the annoying not-quite-anything-ness of the weather. John passed unaccosted.

He was just passing the Lebanese restaurant that Sherlock liked when he saw it.

The plastic bags fell from his hand, crashing to the wet pavement like a face he'd never thought he'd see again. Like the flutter of dark ringlets and moon-pale skin not too distant from him. The effort to keep herself tightly contained within her own minuscule confines against her very nature. The sharp cheekbones and gleaming eyes unmarred by falling, falling, falling.

"Sherlock," he gasped, torn between stumbling forward and collapsing. His leg ached fiercely, and his heart was in his throat, and the wetness round his eyes was suddenly the warmth of tears rather than the coldness of rain. The milk jug had broken, and watery white rivers and tributaries ran toward the street. So familiar, so different.

 _Please, she's my friend_. Eyes like coins unable to see, so close, so bloody close. He lurched toward her, and a man on a bike looked like he wanted to stop but kept going anyway.

"Sherlock!" he cried. The familiar face kept walking, coat tucked securely round herself, collar flipped up. This one was new, cobalt rather than graphite, falling to her hips. So different, so much the same.

The woman he'd buried kept going, and John found himself running to catch up.

"Sherlock!"

There was misery in the name, tangled with fury and shining joy.

And then the woman turned and he wanted to scream because he had been so incredibly _stupid_. This woman had round, brown, guileless eyes. Hair far neater than anything that would grace Sherlock's head. Small petal mouth, freckles, upturned nose. She looked the picture of simple innocence and sweetness, and even if Sherlock could somehow change her face, she would _never_ give John the Poor Dear look he was receiving now.

"I'm sorry, I think you have me confused," she said, and her voice was high and lilting, touched with a Scottish burr. "You're... You're John Watson, aren't you?"

He blinked at her, barely able to comprehend a word she'd said.

"D'you mind if I get a picture with you?" she asked cheerily, sidestepping his tremulous sorrow.

"I'm sorry," he choked out, voice choked with dust. "I must be getting home."

He jogged the rest of the way to 221B and managed to tip himself inside before going properly to pieces, sobbing and shouting in a way he hadn't since the day before the burial.

* * *

Far, far away, perched in a grotty hotel room in Lebanon itself, Sherlock listened to the familiar voice across the fuzzy lines of distance and a cheap phone. Burners weren't, of course, well known for quality.

"He's gone back to that therapist," Mycroft told her, sounding surprisingly sympathetic. She wasn't quite sure who his sympathy was for.

"You said he was doing better," she hissed, so incredibly careful to keep her voice down. Her conversation would be difficult to hear over the obnoxiously loud television.

"Yes, well, until yesterday, he _was_ showing improvement."

"What happened yesterday?"

Mycroft took a long breath, the sounds whooshing in and out like waves. "He mistook a woman for you," he admitted. "CCTV footage caught him running up to her and speaking to her. She did bear a passing resemblance, easy enough to see from a distance, but his reaction upon catching up with her was a bit distressing."

Sherlock inhaled sharply, balling her free hand against her thigh.

"Have you increased security in the flat?"

"Truthfully, considering the circumstances, it seems a bit...invasive."

She snorted at that and wanted to throw the phone at the wall. Fear and tremendous self control kept the impulse at bay, though it did not ease the fury boiling just inside her chest.

"So spying on your unwilling sister is par for the course, but keeping tabs on someone at risk of doing something stupid, at _my_ request? _That_ is too invasive for you?"

"He is not alone, Violet. Gregory and Elizabeth have spent a great deal of time with him. I know you worry, but please, don't allow this to cloud your judgement. You know what you have to do."

Sherlock sighed, sinking into herself, feeling tiny within the soft confines of the huge bed.

"I do," she agreed. She closed her eyes, thinking of the terrible things she had already witnessed and set into motion.

Four words came unbidden to the backs of her teeth, words she hadn't spoken since their father's funeral, words that she would deny until her dying day.

"I love you, Brother."

"And I as well. Be safe."

The line went dead and she was alone again.

**Author's Note:**

> Un-beta'd, un-Brit-picked. Basically, any errors in grammar or attempting to mask my Americanisms while dealing with an English narrator are all mine.


End file.
